Category Archives: Beekeeping

Not Whether to treat? … to which the answer is yes. Instead, a poor pun on the choice of how I use temperature as an indication of when to treat colonies in midwinter …

Midwinter OA-based treatments

Oxalic acid-based treatments for midwinter Varroa control are most effective when colonies are broodless†. This is because oxalic acid (OA) treatments only kill phoretic mites and are ineffective against mites in sealed cells. They are therefore ideal for use on swarms, packages and broodless colonies in midwinter.

The beekeepers winter dilemma

How can you tell whether your colonies are broodless in midwinter?

On a warm, sunny, Spring afternoon this takes just a couple of minutes … remove the roof, crack off the crownboard, gently lift out the dummy board and the adjacent frame, look carefully at the mass of bees covering the top bars, aim for about the middle and gently prise apart those two frames, lift out a frame from one side of the ‘gap’ and – Hey presto – brood.

Just writing that in early December makes me hanker for much warmer days …

Memories of midseason

Actually, you can do exactly the same in midwinter. There are videos on the internet showing an experienced and (in)famous Finnish beekeeper opening his colonies at -10ºC.

I’ve opened and briefly inspected colonies at low temperatures (though not sub-zero). The bees are usually pretty torpid, reluctant to fly – or simply too cold to – and you can be in and out in just a minute or so. Bees cope pretty well with this. It undoubtedly disturbs them a bit and it breaks the propolis seal on the crownboard, but – done carefully and quickly – it’s the only foolproof way to determine whether a colony is broodless in midwinter.

But what if they’ve got brood and it’s therefore not the optimal time to treat? Do you go back and repeat the entire process in 1-2 weeks? What if it’s snowing next time, or there’s a howling gale blowing?

An alternative approach is needed∞.

The annual brood rearing cycle

As the colony moves from summer to autumn the egg laying rate of the queen drops. It goes on dropping, although not necessarily smoothly, as the days shorten further, the temperature drops and the sources of pollen and nectar disappear. If the queen stops laying altogether then the colony will become broodless about 21 days later.

At some point, perhaps early in the New Year, the queen starts laying again. Slowly at first, but at increasing levels as the season starts. Once foraging starts in earnest the egg laying rate increases markedly and peaks sometime in June.

The precise timing of all these changes cannot be predicted. It’s likely to be dependent on a range of factors – nectar and pollen availability, the strain of bee, day length (and whether it’s increasing or decreasing) and temperature.

Of these, temperature probably has the greatest influence.

Probablyß.

Generalised annual brood and worker numbers …

Here’s a quick’n’dirty graph put together with BEEHAVE showing a generalised annual cycle of total brood (blue) and adult bee (red) numbers. Under the conditions in this model the colony is broodless for ~30 days at the end if the year.

Temperate(ure)

Part of the problem with being definitive about the annual brood cycle is the temperature variation with latitude. Temperate regions stretch – in Europe – from Northern Finland to Southern Spain. Bees are kept throughout this range, but obviously experience wildly different climates.

And then there’s the year to year variation.

So if you can’t predict when the colony is going to be broodless, perhaps you can observe the weather – and in particular the temperature – and make an educated guess.

Watch the weather

Over the last few years I’ve applied my midwinter treatment soon (<6 days) after the end of the first extended cold period of the season. This is generally earlier than most beekeepers, who often treat between Christmas and New Year, or early in January.

So, how do we reasonably accurately monitor the weather for a suitable time to treat?

Ho ho ho

Most of us live in centrally-heated splendour, protected from the day-to-variation of temperature by heated car seats, air conditioning, hot water bottles, Thinsulate and wood-burning stoves. Do you know what the temperature was today? Rather than trust the wildly-variable (in accuracy) national‡ weather reports for the actual temperature near my apiaries, I instead use very much more local data from Weather Underground.

There are hundreds of ‘amateur’ weather stations across the country that upload data to wunderground.com. Most of these provide current and historic data, including temperature (max, min and average). Here’s one for Auchtermuchty in Fife (on wunderground.com) and directly from the weather station.

Once the weather cools I keep an eye on the average temperature over an extended period of a fortnight or so. If it remains low I wait a bit more … but I then treat as soon as practical after it warms up to 8-10°C or so.

The proof of the pudding

I didn’t open my colonies, but others opened on the same day nearby were all broodless. The 7th was chosen as it was the first warm (relatively!) day after a 19 day window in which the average temperature had barely climbed above 5°C.

These treated colonies went into the New Year with vanishingly low Varroa levels.

And again …

This year appears to be repeating a very similar pattern. We’ve had frosts most nights since the 10th of November. It started to warm up significantly in early December as storm Caroline bore down on Scotland and I treated most of my colonies on the 6th …

… by the light of a head torch, in light rain and strengthening wing at 7pm after work.

No, I didn’t open any of the hives to check if they were broodless 😉

It was over 11°C in the apiary when I treated, the barometer was plummeting and the forecast was for near-zero temperatures within 24 hours and remaining that way for another 10 days.

Some of my hives have perspex crownboards. These allow me to check both the state of the colony and if the vapour from my Sublimox has permeated to every corner of the hive. All the colonies were very loosely clustered, with a few bees even wandering out briefly onto the landing board in the dark as I bumbled around preparing things.

The Varroa trays will now be checked in a week or so to work out the mite infestation levels. In the meantime, I can start planning for the coming season knowing I’ve done the best I can to reduce virus levels in the colonies, so giving them a good start to the year.

A Hi tech solution?

Colonies rearing brood maintain a higher, and stable, broodnest temperature (32-35°C) than colonies without brood. It is therefore possible to determine whether a colony has brood by monitoring the temperature directly, rather than trying to infer it from the ambient temperature.

Brood rearing starts …

Arnia make hive monitors that allow this sort of thing to be measured. It would be interesting to relate the brood temperature to the ambient temperature (described above) to determine how accurate or otherwise simply ‘watching the weather’ is. Of course … what you’d really want to do is monitor when brood rearing stops and treat soon after that.

Stop press

I treated colonies in our research apiary the following day – the 7th – with dribbled Api-Bioxal. The temperature had dropped almost 7°C since the previous evening and colonies were again beginning to cluster tightly. Under these conditions I’m never confident that the OA vapour penetrates fully, so prefer to trickle treat.

I briefly checked one strong colony in a poly hive for brood.

It was broodless, as I’d hoped 🙂

Of course, this doesn’t guarantee all the others are also broodless, but it does give me some confidence that I’d chosen the correct weather to treat.

† This article, like most on this site, discuss beekeeping issues relevant to temperate climates. It’s important to make this clear now as most of what follows is irrelevant to readers from warmer regions.

∞ Even if there is brood in midwinter, it’s going to be in pretty small amounts. The rate at which this brood emerges is going to be low. The chances of determining what’s going in the colony by ‘reading the tea leaves’ from the debris falling through the mesh floor of the hive is therefore not great. It would probably also require repeated visits to the apiary.

ß This needs qualifying … in midseason, when the temperature varies but it’s not generally cold, the nectar flow is probably the rate-limiting step for brood rearing. The June gap is regularly associated with the queen shutting up shop for a while. However, in late autumn and early winter I’m sure the plummeting temperatures is a major influence on egg laying by the queen.

‡ National … Ha! Most are only national if you live within the M25. Anywhere else and you’re usually much better off accessing some data from closer to home. It’s worth noting that the sort of ‘amateur’ weather stations I discuss do vary in data quality. For example, they’re a bit dodgy recording temperatures in full sun (they tend to over-read). However, if you find a local one, check the temperature in comparison to a thermometer in your apiary, you’ll find it’s a useful way to monitor what might be happening in the hives.

§ I don’t routinely generate these graphs – I have a life (!) – but did specifically to illustrate this post. It’s sufficient to simply monitor the average temperature.

Colophon

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

I’ve discussed labelling jars of honey previously. In addition to a legally acceptable label, any honey sold via a third party should probably have a tamper-proof seal. More correctly, these should be called tamper-evident seals as they don’t stop anyone tampering with the jar. These usually take the form of an adhesive strip that connects the lid to one side of the jar, although there are other styles. Some of the shops I sell through insist on tamper-evident seals, for understandable reasons.

DIY isn’t always best

I’ve made my own tamper-evident seals using my trusty Dymo LabelWriter 450 Duo. This simple thermal printer has two print heads. One prints individual labels and the other prints to tape. You can purchase thin, clear adhesive Dymo tape which makes quite good tamper-evident seals. It can be printed with a website address or other information in black ink.

However, I’ve standardised on square jars with black lids and the black text on the clear Dymo label was therefore unreadable in places. In addition, the tape is quite expensive (about £11 for 7 metres†), increasing the ‘packaging’ costs of my honey. Finally, the strip that must be removed from the back of the tape was infuriatingly fiddly (hence tamper tantrums), so slowing the labelling process. Perhaps I need glasses?

C. Wynne Jones clear tamper-evident seal …

Clearly better

Instead of persevering with a DIY solution I now purchase rolls of 1000 clear tamper-evident labels from C. Wynne Jones for about £27. These are easy to apply as long as you develop a system to keep fingerprints off the underside of the label. They adhere well and are very unobtrusive.

Importantly, any attempt to remove the jar lid stretches the tamper-evident label destructively, making it very obvious that the jar has been, er, tampered with.

Clear(ly) tamper-evident seals

When the jar is finally opened, the first thing that happens is the tamper-evident seal is destroyed. This isn’t too worrying since they cost less than 3p.

Finally, if you want to support a good cause and use tamper-evident seals consider purchasing them from the charity Bees for Development. These are also available from Thorne’s who developed the scheme. With these, 10p from each jar sold goes to support their work promoting “sustainable beekeeping to combat poverty and to build sustainable, resilient livelihoods.”

† At this price the Dymo tape costs quite a bit more than personalised tamper-evident labels from Thorne’s. These are are available in a wide range of colours and styles.

There’s a high level of ‘churn’ amongst new beekeepers. Beekeeping is relatively easy and inexpensive to start. The principles of beekeeping appear straightforward. But large numbers of beginners give up after a season or two.

Here I argue that the colonies and hives some of these beginners abandon pose a threat to other beekeepers, sometimes for years …

A better appreciation of the commitment required to successfully practice the principles of beekeeping might increase the success rates of beginners, though it might also dissuade some from starting in the first place.

Save the bees, save humanity

Supermarket bees …

Bees are popular. You only need to visit the supermarket, spend time on the High Street or browse the web, to find bees or pollinators mentioned. The plight of the honey bee is extensively documented in the press. In places some of these references are little more than thinly-veiled adverts … there are any number of beers or ales that now include ‘local honey’ to support bees and beekeeping†.

So, public awareness is high.

A good thing

In some ways this is a good thing. The public are aware that, for a variety of reasons, our honey bees (and other pollinators, but I’m going to restrict myself to honey bees for the remainder of this post) are facing real problems. Habitat destruction, monoculture, disease, farming practices, global warming, mobile phone masts, parasites, imports and – the current favourite – neonicotinoids, are all/solely (delete as appropriate) to blame for the problems faced by our cute little bees.

Monoculture … beelicious …

It’s a good thing because you might get to sell more local honey which, as a consequence, means you’ll look after your bees carefully and manage them to make more honey next year. It’s a good thing – and I’ll declare a vested interest here – because the Government is encouraged to spend money on research to discover what the real threats to honey bees are (hint, it’s probably not mobile phone masts). This money will also help develop ways to mitigate these threats in due course.

There are a lots of other reasons why it’s a good thing. People are designing bee-friendly gardens, they’re planting wild-flower meadows, they’re reducing pesticide usage and favouring biological control or other pest management techniques. Farmers are being encouraged to leave wide field margins or build beetle banks … and some might even be doing this.

Too much of a good thing?

Some people are so concerned about the plight of the honey bee they decide to do the obvious thing and buy a hive and bees for the bottom of their garden. Obvious, because they’ve increased the number of hives and they’ll be getting lots of delicious honey at the end of the summer.

Some attend a winter ‘start beekeeping’ course (or fully intend to next year, once they’ve kept bees for the current season‡). Some think they’ll be OK with generous offer of telephone support from the person who sold them a midsummer nuc¶.

Others do this without any training, without any advice and without anyone to mentor them.

What could possibly go wrong?

These new beekeepers are certainly well-intentioned. They fully intend to help bees. They really think they’re going to help. They love the idea of their own local honey.

Unfortunately, although many might think they appreciate the basic principles of keeping bees, they know very little about the practice of beekeeping.

Principles

Actually, the principles of beekeeping are a little more complicated than buying a hive, dumping a nuc into it and harvesting the honey at the end of the season.

The bees need to be fed when there’s a dearth of nectar, or in preparation for winter. They need to be protected from pests and diseases. They need space to expand. They need to be monitored in case they’re thinking of swarming. If they are, action is needed. And all this needs to be regularly and repeatedly checked throughout the Spring and Summer.

In short, they need to be properly managed. This management is the practice of successful beekeeping.

Without proper management I’d argue that one of the biggest threats to bees and beekeeping is the unmanaged colony (or hive) lurking in the corner of a field.

Practice

It’s easy to overgeneralise here. The following paragraphs are really describing beekeepers in their first few seasons. Experienced beekeepers can modify their management practices to one that suits their bees, environment, climate and strategy. Bear with me.

Inspections need to start before colonies build up too strongly in the Spring. Queens should ideally be found and marked (and clipped in my view, but some prefer not to do this). Inspections continue at 7 day intervals until the swarming season is well and truly over.

Not 11 day intervals … not when “the weather is better than today”, not when “I get back from the fortnight in Crete”, not when “I can be bothered” … and certainly not only when “the neighbour is angry about the swarm clustered on their garden swing”.

Inspections have to be conducted thoroughly and with a purpose. It’s not a cursory glance in the top of the box. There’s a reason you’re doing it, so do it well.

Inspections must be done even if it’s 32°C in the shade and you’re melting in your beesuit, when the bees are stroppy as the OSR has just gone over and there’s no nectar coming in, when the weather is (again) miserable and all 50,000 will be ‘at home’ (and possibly tetchy as well) and even if you think “surely they’ll be OK for another day or two?”.

They probably won’t.

Hard labour

Beekeeping is hard work. If you’re lucky and the supers are bulging full it can be backbreaking.

You have to work reasonably fast and carefully. Manage only one of these two and, for different reasons, inspections can become tiresome.

You will get stung, though not often if you’re fast and careful and if you have well-tempered bees.

It can be hot as hell in summer and you can get wet, miserable and cold at any time of the season.

Uh oh … swarming …

It’s not only physically hard, it is also mentally hard. Not like quantum physics, but it still requires quite a bit of thought. Bees are not ‘fit and forget’.

Using a combination of observation, experience and knowledge (and perhaps a little inspired guesswork) you need to determine what’s going on in a forty litre box containing over 50,000 bees. Is there disease present? Is it one you can do anything about? Is it notifiable? Is the queen present and laying well? Is the colony thinking of swarming (hint, a dozen sealed cells is usually an indication the colony has swarmed, not that it’s thinking of swarming 😉 ). Do they have enough stores? Do they need more space?

You need to be prepared for disappointment (and have a contingency plan). Despite your best efforts the colony may swarm. An extended period of lousy summer weather prevents the new queen from getting mated properly. The colony dwindles, is too weak to defend itself and is robbed out by another colony. Any number of things can go wrong.

Bees are managed, not domesticated.

That’s the reality of beekeeping. That’s the practice that underlies the principle of just dumping a nuc of bees in a box in late April and harvesting pound after pound of golden honey in early September.

If only it were that simple!

Beeless “beekeepers”

I regularly meet people who ‘once kept bees’. I’m sure you do to. Further discussion often shows that they certainly once had bees, but that they failed to keep them.

The colony died, was robbed out, repeatedly swarmed, absconded or – much more frequently – these beekeephaders simply lost interest.

Often they aren’t actually sure what happened to the colony. Have you ever asked them?

Their initial enthusiasm was tempered a bit by the first couple of inspections. The colony was getting much bigger, much faster than their experience made them comfortable with. They got a bit frightened but wouldn’t actually admit that. They missed an inspection (or two) as they were in Crete for the family holiday. The colony swarmed. They’d read somewhere that the colony shouldn’t be disturbed for a month, so they didn’t. They remembered again three months later but were then too late for the autumn Varroa treatment. Have you got any fondant to spare? They’ll have another go next year.

Definitely.

It’s not unusual for these hives to be simply abandoned. You find them in the corners of fields or tucked up against the hedge in a large sprawling garden.

Out of sight and out of mind.

Forgotten, but not gone …

The gift that keeps on giving

Sometimes the colony limps on for a season or two. More often though it expires in the winter. The hive may then be repopulated the following year by a swarm. They flourish, or more likely perish and are repopulated again. Even if mice move in for winter and wax moth trashes the comb they still attract swarms.

duunnn dunnn …

There’s a dozen or more hives like this on private land I know of. Some local beekeepers visit every year or so to collect any swarms that have moved in∏. I can’t imagine the state of the comb … or the colonies they collect.

The abandoned hives effectively act as bait hives, attracting swarms which become established feral colonies. Most will eventually be decimated by Varroa and its viral payload, but many will chuck out a swarm or two first, or drones thatdriftfrom colony to colony. Some will get robbed out as they collapse – perhaps by one of your strong colonies – leading to a huge infestation with phoretic mites carried by the returningrobbers.

They’re like a 40 litre cedar version of Typhoid Mary∞.

† And my extensive market research suggests they are very delicious too 😉

‡ After all, there’s no time like the present to start and the sooner you buy and populate that lovely cedar hive, the faster honey bee colonies numbers will increase. But they will definitely attend the beekeeping course next winter. Absolutely!

¶ Telephone support. Really?! Have you ever tried to give telephone advice to a new beekeeper who’s standing by an open hive, mobile clamped to their ear, desperately looking for eggs, or deciding whether the queen cells are capped or uncapped? I’ve tried … don’t bother. Grab the beesuit and get to the apiary 😉

∏ There are others I know of and have access to. The entrances to these have miraculously become stuffed tight with grass, so preventing their repopulation. How did that happen? 😉

∞ A poor analogy, but it makes the point. Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon) was an Irish immigrant New York cook in the early part of the 20th Century. She was also an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid, a bacterial infection. During the period 1900-07 she infected at least 51 people, three of whom died. Investigative epidemiology traced a series of typhoid fever outbreaks to places where Mary Mallon worked. She was named Typhoid Mary in a 1908 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon refused to accept that she was infected, was forcibly incarcerated (quarantined) twice and eventually died after three decades of isolation. The analogy is poor because Mary Mallon appeared in good health, whereas these abandoned hives (and the bees they contain) are often pretty skanky. However, the term “like Typhoid Mary” is often used to indicate a source of repeated infection … which is spot on.

We’re in the hiatus between the end of the beekeeping season and the start of the beginning of the planning for the preparation for the next. Or, I am.

Of course, if you’re reading this from Australia (G’day … the 5th largest readership globally) or Chile (Hola … 62nd in the list) then things are probably just getting really busy.

Inevitably things here are going to be a bit quiet for a few months. Have patience.

Getting ready for winter

Here in the Northern hemisphere, at a latitude of about 56°N, the nights are rapidly getting longer and the temperature is tumbling. We’ve had several sharp frosts already. I checked my bees yesterday through the perspex crownboards – where present – and most were pretty tightly huddled together. In the very warmest part of the day there were a few flying in the weak sunshine, but the majority of colonies were quiet.

Since many of the most recent posts have been rather long (and I’m pressed for time with work commitments) I’m going to restrict myself to a few brief comments about this tidy – and tiny – little hive tool from Thorne’s.

Pocket hive tool

One of the final tasks of the year is to slice off the brace comb built in places along the tops of the frames while feeding colonies. I only use fondant, usually adding 12.5 kg to start with and then a further few kilograms if I think the hive is a bit light. All this fits nicely under one of my inverted, insulated perspex crownboards. However, as the fondant it taken down and stored, the bees tend to build little pinnacles of comb under or around the plastic bag.

Before closing the colony up for the season all these bits of brace comb need to be tidied away. I simply run a sharp hive tool along the top bars of the frames, remove the wax and – eventually – melt it down in my steam wax extractor. If you leave the wax in place you can’t put the crownboard back the right way up … or, when you do, you risk crushing bees.

Bargains in the sales

In the Thorne’s summer sales this year I bought the usual range of stuff I have almost no use for, together with half a dozen of the cheapo copies of their claw hive tool to replace those I’ve lost or lent during the year.

In addition I bought a couple of their ‘pocket hive tools’ (shown above) for a quid each.

These are small and neat, have a simple frame lifter at one end and a very good, sharp, chisel tip at the other. They are made of stainless steel. They fit neatly into the palm of the hand, don’t project too far and yet are enough to provide the leverage to separate all but the most stubbornly propolised frames.

For tidying up the top bars of my hives before closing them up for year this little hive tool was just the job.

‘Pocket hive tool’ is a bit of a misnomer though. It’s certainly small enough to fit into your beesuit pocket, but just about sharp enough it won’t be staying there long. Any serious pressure, for example as you get back into the car/van/truck risks either a nasty injury ( 😯 ) or it will eventually escape through a neatly sliced-through seam.

It might be better to keep it in your bee bag, or – as I do with other hive tools – store it in a bucket of soda in the apiary.

Colophon

The phrase small, but perfectly formed is at least 200 years old. Google Books first lists it in the Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle of 1779 (though in those days they used a medial or long ‘s’ so the title was the Gentleman’s Magazine and HiſtoricalChronicle) where it appears in an article by Mr Rack describing (or deſcribing) a new found aquatic animal. Whether ‘small, but perfectly formed‘ is now an idiom or a cliche is unclear. The usually excellent Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2014) defines the idiom as meaning “something noticeably small but compensating for this by a perfection of quality”. Their first reference to the phrase occurs in a letter written in October 1914 by Duff Cooper to Lady Diana Manners, later his wife, and quoted in Artemis Cooper’s Durable Fire (1983): ‘Your two stout lovers frowning at one another across the hearth rug, while your small, but perfectly formed one kept the party in a roar’. The expression was probably not original to Cooper but drawn from the fashionable talk of the period. The usage is often tongue-in-cheek or journalistically formulaic for anything small … which is exactly how I’ve used the term in the title of this post.

With the practical season now over we’re entering the period of regular winter beekeeping talks and weekend conventions†. For five or six months the closest many of us will get to bees is a draughty church hall with a cup of tea at the end.

And a chocolate digestive biscuit if the Association Secretary has managed to get everyone to pay their subs.

What? No chocolate?

Listening

I enjoy these events. There’s a healthy, competitive camaraderie to the conversations before and after the talk …

How was your season?

80lb? Per colony? Or in total?

Didn’t lose a swarm all season!

… and so on. The old-timers smile knowingly and keep quiet about the best sites, the ‘newbees’ enthusiastically recount the ups and downs of their first season and those on the beginners course this winter simply try and work out what the heck a ‘Demaree’ is.

During the talk the lights are dimmed. We all peer through the gloom at a slightly skewwiff image projected onto the cream-painted wall which has a picture hook irritatingly visible just left of centre.

The old boy in the fifth row falls asleep and starts snoring gently.

Forty-five to fifty minutes flies by, the lights come up and there’s an opportunity for questions. By this time everyone is gasping for a cuppa or the loo, or both, so appreciation is shown “in the usual manner” and the formal part of the evening draws to a close.

Drinking

Tea is brewed, biscuits are scoffed. Now is the time to ask the question you wish you’d asked at the end of the talk – either of the speaker or of the more experienced ‘beek’ (and in my experience there are always more experienced beekeepers at these things) sitting next to you.

Friendships are re-established, new contacts are made, recipes are exchanged and tips and tricks are offered.

The audience breaks up into little groups discussing honey or queen rearing or the upcoming sale at Maisies. People drift away. The Secretary scurries round trying to get the usual suspects to pay the subs that have been due since last January (which is why there weren’t any chocolate digestives). Cups are washed, the library is packed away and the hall locked up.

But it’s not over yet … twos and threes loiter in the car park where the real gossiping occurs. Unless it’s snowing. Who’s been buying in imported colonies or queens for selling on as “local”? How many times has ‘Fred’ recycled that winning jar of clover honey in the show? Which farmers will be growing borage next year?

Ah! That’s better

Talking

I enjoy these as well. I usually end up getting invites to present at just about the same number of talks I manage to attend at my own associations each winter. Some are round the corner or pretty local, others are at the other end of the country. I was recently excellently hosted by the Devon BKA (~500 miles away) and presented at a meeting in Chillán (~7500 miles away) of Chilean beekeepers in March.

With the exception of these long-distance trips the process is pretty similar. The satnav is programmed with the venue details. The bag is checked for the laptop and every possible connector that might be needed. A spare copy of the presentation is carried on a memory stick ‘just in case’. The car is loaded with any additional stuff used in the presentation (nothing for a science talk, but lots for talks on practical beekeeping).

I set off later than intended but earlier than needed. There’s almost nothing worse than turning up late. I find the venue, park nearby in the dark, locate the draughty church hall‡ and the Secretary lurking in wait for early arrivers (who haven’t paid their subs yet).

The laptop is set up, the projector checked and the screen/image is levelled as the audience dribbles in. Old friends say hello. The lights are dimmed and we’re off!

The reflection from the screen casts an eerie light across the audience. Faces in the front couple of rows are clear and bright. Those further back are more like a grainy black and white image. Expressions are more difficult to see. Are they still following this? Am I going too fast? Too slow?

Laughing

Oops …

I chuck in a joke or anecdote to liven things up. That’s better. Or not. My jokes aren’t good.

A particularly pale slide casts a brighter reflection deeper into the crepuscular gloom at the back of the hall.

The old boy in the fifth row who has been gently snoring for the last 15 minutes can now be heard and seen.

I gallop towards the end, thanking the organisers, my research team, those who gave us the money to do the work and the beekeeping associations we’re privileged to be working with.

Mild applause … someone nips out to turn the urn on.

Questions

These are by far and away the best bit. As a speaker it’s how I judge how successful I was at getting the message across.

Questions range from simple and straightforward to long, rambling and exquisitely complicated.

All are welcome.

Not all can be answered.

Simple questions about things I’ve covered, albeit quickly or as a peripheral point, are easy to answer and I make a mental note to deal with the subject better in the future (or avoid it for clarity).

Difficult questions about things I’ve covered may require a longer answer, more thought or a cup of tea. Inevitably, some topics are outside the experience or interest of most of the audience. A detailed explanation of molecular biology (science) or long-winded discussion of grafting tools (queen rearing) needs to be postponed …

Gasping …

“Let’s discuss that over a cup of tea and a chocolatedigestive” … the latter said hopefully.

Questions about things unrelated to my talk are not unusual. Long, rambling and exquisitely convoluted questions about a totally different topic are sometimes asked. There’s a direct relationship between the number of people wanting to ask questions and the length, ramblingness, and distance off-topic of these types of questions.

I usually hope the Association Secretary or Chair steps in at this stage and announces that tea is ready.

Experience

As a scientist I’m used to talking at conferences where the audience ranges from undergraduate students to internationally-renowned Emeritus Professors. As a beekeeper I’m well aware that the audience at Association events may include the full spectrum of experience and abilities … from those on the winter “Introduction to Beekeeping Course” to some who earn a living beekeeping.

I’m also well aware that the old boy in the fifth row who gently snored through my entire talk is probably just knackered having spent whole the day extracting 500 lb of heather honey.

Which is almost, to the ounce, 500 lb more than I got 😉

All he came for was a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit.

The end

I pack up the cables and the laptop, say my goodbyes, weave my way through the little groups in the car park gossiping about the price of Api-Bioxal or where to buy cheap fondant. I finally locate my car, plug in the satnav, turn up the radio (it’s late and I’ve got a three hour journey ahead) and wend my way home.

By midnight I’m wishing I’d had one less cup of tea and one more chocolate digestive.

Homeward bound …

† I’ll deal with Conventions some other time. These are increasingly popular, often draw big, knowledgeable, audiences and usually have the added distraction of the trade stands.

‡ I’m well aware not all of these talks are held in draughty church halls. I’ve spoken in draughty village halls, draughty sports halls and draughty community centres. I’ve also spoken in some great venues, with excellent AV facilities, comfortable chairs (particularly in the fifth row), really good tea and coffee and some spectacularly tasty home-made cakes (thank you Arran Bee Group!). Whatever the venue, as long as we manage to get the laptop to talk to the projector – and even if we don’t – it’s great to meet enthusiastic beekeepers wanting to ‘talk bees’ on a cold winter night.

Colophon

Someone who can ‘talk the talk‘ speaks convincingly on a specific subject, showing apparent mastery of its jargon and nuances. You often hear it used in conjunction with the phrase ‘walk the walk‘ e.g. He can talk the walk but can he walk the walk?

Walk the walk essentially means to back up the talk with actions. It’s related to expressions like ‘action speaks louder than words’, ‘talk is cheap’ and ‘practice what you preach’. If you can’t ‘walk the walk’ then it’s simply empty bragging … in the UK the phrase ‘all mouth and no trousers’ is another way to say this, though it perhaps has rather sexist overtones.

It’s November and the end of the ‘bee season’ is well and truly here. Inspections finished some time ago (or should have) and the winter Varroa treatments are completed (or should be).

My precious …

Preparation for the coming season should now be the priority. One of the first things that needs to be done is protecting any valuable drawn comb not covered with bees.

Drawn comb is a really precious resource and is well worth looking after carefully. All beekeepers are likely to have super frames of drawn comb after honey extraction. Some will additionally have drawn brood frames. Finally, beekeepers who do a lot of queen rearing may have drawn frames of drone comb. All can be re-used, in the case of super frames many, many times, so saving the bees the effort (and the nectar used) to draw fresh comb.

Super frames

I allow the bees to clean out super frames from which the honey has been extracted. I place them back on the hive in the evening and the bees clean out the traces of honey. After clearing them again I stack them outdoors carefully on a plastic or Correx ‘floor’ and a wasp-proof roof. Sometimes – though not every year due to forgetfulness – I treat them with acetic acid to kill Nosema spores. I’ll discuss this in a future post as I’ll be doing it this season. If I remember.

I’ve got super frames dating back to my first year of beekeeping that are still perfectly usable. Any with odd-shaped comb just get sliced back square to the sidebars with a breadknife.

Any which has had brood reared in it (for example, when the queen sneaks above the excluder, or I’ve run a colony as ‘brood and half’, both increasingly rare events) goes into the steam wax extractor.

Brood frames

Spare brood frames are a great thing to have at hand when making up nucleus colonies, during queen rearing or at a variety of other times. They deserve to be protected and stored properly.

Unless, of course, they’ve had more than about three years of use, in which case they are also usually rendered down in the steam wax extractor. Even these old ones sometimes get a reprieve. I give them one more season as the single frame of old brood comb in my bait hives. These manky old frames should also be treated with acetic acid to kill Nosema spores and protected and stored carefully.

Galleria mellonella and Achroia grisella

Lesser wax moth (12mm)

These are respectively the greater and lesser wax moth. They infest stored comb and favour brood comb with old cocoons, traces of pollen and larval faeces. If unchecked they can destroy your valuable comb, converting the lovely wax to a mass of silk-lined tunnels and dust. They much prefer brood comb to super comb and seem to avoid supers stored ‘wet’ i.e. extracted but not subsequently cleaned by the bees.

It’s difficult, but not impossible, to provide moth-proof storage for your comb. They can sneak through a surprisingly narrow gap in the joint of a brood box.

In early copies of Hooper’s Guide to Bees and Honey it was recommended to use paradichloro-benzene (or, more correctly, 1,4-dichlorobenzene) to protect your brood frames from the ravages of wax moths. This is the stuff that makes moth balls stink. It’s pretty unpleasant, potentially neurotoxic (for humans) and not something I want anywhere near my ‘honey for human consumption’ bees.

I’ve not got a current copy of Hooper, so don’t know what is recommended now, but there are much better alternatives.

Biological control

Wax moths lay their eggs in stored frames, the eggs hatch and the larvae (caterpillars) burrow through the wax, eating their way through the old cocoons and other rubbish, creating a huge network of silken tunnels which eventually trash the comb. They then pupate and subsequently emerge as moths to fly off and decimate more stored comb. Little blighters!

It’s the ‘eating’ in the paragraph above that makes them susceptible to biological control with Bacillus thuringiensis.

Bacillus what?

B401 Certan

Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacterium. During its replication it generates spores and a so-called crystal protein that is lethal to the moth larvae in which it is replicating. I’ll return to the spores later … these are a thermally and environmentally stable form of the bacterium, protected by a thick cell wall.

The crystal protein (or, more correctly, δ-endotoxin) dissolves in the alkaline environment of the insect gut, thereby making it susceptible to digestion by proteases present in the gut. This protease cleavage releases the active form of the toxin which inserts into the cells of the gut, paralysing the cells and finally resulting in the formation of a pore.

This isn’t good for the moth larva. Not good at all. Actually, it’s probably a rather grisly end for the moth but, having seen the damage they can do to stored comb, my sympathy is rather limited.

However, it’s very good news for the beekeeper. It’s particularly good because of the specificity of the toxin (which is often referred to as Bt-toxin). The vast majority of Bt-toxins used for biological control are specific for the larvae of the lepidoptera – the butterflies and moths. These have no activity against bees or other pollinators.

Since the only moth or butterfly larvae that occur in hives, or on stored comb, are the unwanted wax moths, this is an effective and safe way of preventing infestations.

Preventing, not curing. Once infestation is present the damage is largely done.

Biological control is compatible with organic farming methods, if that’s what floats your boat.

Certan

B401 Certan† is the most commonly available and regularly used Bt-toxin for beekeepers. You can buy Certan from the majority of beekeeping suppliers. Certan is supplied in bottles containing the spores or protein toxin of Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies aizawai. You make it up in water and spray it onto both faces of the drawn comb you want to protect from wax moths.

Certan costs about £16 a bottle which is sufficient to treat 120 brood frames (~13p/frame). Certan is used at a 1:20 dilution in water i.e. a 5% solution. Full details are available from Vita Bee Health who are distributors for Certan. There’s a nice video on the Vita site which shows how easy it is to administer.

DiPel DF

DiPel DF

As an alternative to Certan, some beekeepers use DiPel DF. This contains the kurstaki subspecies of Bacillus thuringiensis. Although a different subspecies, the toxin is equally effective and equally specific. DiPel DF is widely available from agricultural suppliers and costs about £55 for 500g. DiPel DF sourced from Italy is routinely listed on eBay at a much lower price.

Because DiPel DF isn’t specifically sold for beekeepers the recommended dilution to be used isn’t published. However, if you grow tomatoes under cover the recommended dose is 100g per 100 litres of water i.e. a 0.1% solution.

I’ve used DiPel DF at a 1% concentration. I mixed the powder thoroughly 1 part in 20 and then used this stock solution 1:5 to make the working-strength solution to be sprayed onto the frames. About 10 ml per side per frame is used, sprayed with a fine nozzle. At this dilution, DiPel DF costs about 2p per frame … a very considerable saving. It may be equally effective at 0.1% – I’ve not tried – in which case it would obviously be even more economical.

A pressurised hand sprayer works well to administer DiPel or Certan. You can usually get these sprayers from big supermarkets for a couple of pounds.

Spores store

The beauty of spores is that they’re very stable. This means you can store them for long periods without them ‘going off’. Neither Certan or DiPel DF make absolutely clear what the bottle contains – sometimes they refer to ‘active protein’, sometimes to ‘toxin’ and sometimes to Bacillus thuringiensis. Some even suggest a mix … Valent BioSciences, the manufacturer of DiPel DF claim that it contains an optimized blend of four potent Bt protein toxins and a spore. They should know. The DF suffix means ‘dry flowable’ by the way.

Whatever is actually in the bottle, it’s pretty stable. If you store the powder in a cool, dry, frost-free location it should be OK for several years. The safety data sheet for Certan states that it remains active for at least 5 years if stored unopened at 5°C or less.

Store frames

The Certan or DiPel-treated frames should be stored, dry, in empty brood or nucleus boxes. These are best stacked outside, protected from rain or being blown over, until they’re needed next season.

Which is a long way off, but slowly getting closer …

Hic!

† Certan is also a well known and respected Bordeaux wine from the appellation Pomerol. The full name is Château Certan de May de Certan, which is both a bit of a mouthful and internally redundant. The middle ‘de May’ part of the name is derived from the Demay family, the original owners, who were of Scottish origin and lived in France from the Middle Ages.

Make sure you buy the right Certan … whilst the stuff from Thorne’s is not inexpensive, a 2005 Vieux Château Certan will cost about £360 🙁 However, this is a bargain when compared with a similar aged Petrus (which shares the same clay soil on the right bank of the Gironde) at ten times the price.

It’s no secret that I have both amateur and professional interests in bees, bee health and beekeeping.

During the weekend I sweat profusely in my beesuit, rushing between my apiaries in Central and Eastern Fife, checking my colonies – about 15 at the autumn census this year – averting swarms, setting up bait hives, queen rearing and carrying bulging supers back for extraction.

During the winter the beekeeping stops, but the research continues unabated. The apiary visits are replaced with trips in the evenings and weekends to beekeeping associations and conventions to talk about our research … or sometimes to talk about beekeeping.

Which came first?

I’ve been a virologist my entire academic career, but I’ve only worked on honey bee viruses for about 6 years. I’ve been a beekeeper for about a decade, so the beekeeping preceded working on the viruses of bees.

However, the two are inextricably entwined. Having a reasonable amount of beekeeping experience provides a unique insight into the problems and practicalities of controlling the virus diseases that bees get.

Being able to “talk beekeeping” with beekeepers has been very useful – both for the communication of our results to a wider audience and in influencing the way we approach our research.

Increasingly, the latter is important. Researchers need to address relevant questions, using their detailed understanding of the science to deliver practical solutions to problems1. There’s no point in coming up with a solution if there’s no way it’s implementation is compatible with beekeeping.

Deformed wing virus

DWV symptoms

The most important virus for most beekeepers in most years is deformed wing virus (DWV). This virus “does what it says on the tin” because, at high levels, it causes developmental defects in pupae that emerge with shrivelled, stunted wings. There are additional developmental defects which are slightly less obvious, but there are additional (largely invisible) changes which are of greater importance.

DWV reduces the lifespan of worker bees. This is probably not hugely significant in workers destined to live only a few weeks in midsummer. However, the winter bees that get the colony through from September through to March must live for months, not weeks. If these bees are heavily infected with DWV they die at a faster rate. Consequently, the colony dwindles and dies out in midwinter or early Spring. At best, it staggers through to March and then never builds up properly. It’s still effectively a winter loss.

Our research focuses on how Varroa influences the virus population. There’s very good evidence now that DWV transmission by Varroa leads to a significant increase in the amount of virus, and a considerable decrease in the diversity of the virus population.

So what?

Well, this is important because if we want to control the virus (i.e. to reduce DWV-associated disease and colony losses) it must help to know the proper identity of the virus we are trying to control. It will also help us measure how well our control works. We know we’re measuring the right thing.

We’re working with researchers around the world to define the important characteristics of DWV strains that cause disease and, closer to home, with entire beekeeping associations to investigate practical strategies to improve colony health.

Chronic bee paralysis virus

CBPV symptoms

We’re about to start a large collaborative project on the biology and control of chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV). This virus is becoming a significant problem for many beekeepers and is increasing globally. It’s a particular problem for some bee farmers.

CBPV causes characteristic symptoms of dark, hairless, oily-looking bees that sometimes shiver, dying in large smelly piles at the hive entrance. It typically affects very strong colonies in the middle of the season. It can be devastating. Hives that should be the most productive ones in the apiary fail catastrophically.

Why is a virus we’ve known about for decades apparently increasing in the amount of disease it causes? Are there new virulent strains of the virus circulating? Are there particular beekeeping practices that facilitate it’s spread? We’re working with collaborators in the University of Newcastle to try and address these and related questions.

I’ll write more about CBPV over the next year or so. It won’t be a running dialogue on the research (which would be crushingly dull for most readers), but will provide some background information on what is a really fascinating virus.

At least to a virologist 😉

And perhaps to beekeepers.

Grow your own

As virologists, we approach the disease by studying the virus. Although we maintain an excellent research apiary, we don’t do many experiments in ‘the field’. Almost all the work is done in test tubes in incubators in the laboratory … or in bees we rear in those incubators.

Grow your own …

We can harvest day-old larvae (or even eggs) from a colony and rear them to emergence as adult bees in small plastic dishes in the laboratory. We use an artificial diet of sugar and pollen to do this. It’s time consuming – they need very regular feeding – but it provides a tightly controllable environment in which to do experiments.

Since we can rear the bees, we can therefore easily test the ability of viruses to replicate in the bees. Do all strains of the virus replicate equally well? Do some strains outcompete others? Does the route by which the virus is acquired influence the location(s) in the bee in which the virus replicates? Or the strains it is susceptible to? Or the level of virus that accumulates?

And if our competitors are reading this, the answer to most of those questions is ‘yes’ 😉

We can even ask questions about why and how DWV causes deformed wings.

Again, so what? We suspect that DWV causes deformed wings because it stops the expression of a gene in the bee that’s needed to make ‘good’ wings. If we can identify that gene we might be able to investigate different strains of honey bee for variation in the gene that would render them less susceptible to being ‘turned off’ by DWV. That might be the basis for a selective breeding project.

It’s a simplistic explanation, but it’s this type of molecular interaction that explains susceptibility to a wide range of human, animal and plant diseases.

Bee observant

Bee health is important, and not fundamentally difficult to achieve. There are some basics to attend to … strong hives, good forage, good apiary hygieneetc. However, it primarily requires good powers of observation – does something look odd? Are there lots of mites present? How does the brood look?

If things aren’t right – and often deducing this means comparisons must be made between hives – then many interventions are relatively straightforward.

Not long for this world …

The most widespread problems (though, interestingly, this doesn’t apply to CBPV) are due to high levels of Varroa infestation. There are effective and relatively inexpensive ways to treat these … if they’re used properly.

More correctly, they’re relatively inexpensive whether they’re used properly or not. However, they’re pretty ineffective if not used properly 😉

Regular checks, good record keeping, comparisons between hives and informed observation are what is needed. Don’t just look, instead look for specific things. Can you see bees with overt symptoms of DWV? Are there bees with Varroa riding around on their backs? The photo above has both of these in plain view. Are some hairless bees staggering around the top bars with glossy abdomens, or clinging to the side bars shaking and twitching?

Don’t wait, act

I’ve no doubt that scientists will be able to develop novel treatments to control or prevent virus infections of bees. I would say that … I’m a scientist 😉 However, I’m not sure beekeepers will be able to afford them, or perhaps even want to use them, or that they’d be compatible with honey production or of any use in Warré hives etc.

I’m also not sure how soon these sorts of treatments might become available … so don’t wait.

If there are signs of obvious DWV infection you need to do something. ‘Obvious’ because DWV is always present, but it’s usually harmless or at least tolerated by the bees. My lab have looked at thousands of bees and have yet to find one without detectable levels of DWV. However, healthy bees have only about 1/10,000 the level of DWV present in sick bees … and these are the ones that have obvious symptoms.

Unfortunately, if your colony has signs of CBPV disease then Varroa control is not really relevant. The virus is transmitted from bee to bee by direct contact. This probably accounts for the appearance of the disease primarily in very strong colonies.

At the moment there’s little you can do to ‘cure’ a CBPV-afflicted colony. I hope, in 2-3 years we will have a better idea on what interventions might work. We have lots of ideas, but there are a lot of basic questions to be addressed before we can test them.

Field work

Business and pleasure

The half of my lab that don’t work on bee viruses study fundamental mechanisms of virus replication and evolution. They do this using human viruses, some of which are distant relatives of DWV. They work on human viruses as it’s only these that have excellent model systems to facilitate the types of elegant experiments we try to do. They’re also relatively easy to justify in funding applications, and it allows us to tap into a much bigger pot for funding opportunities (human health R&D costs probably total £2 billion/annum, bees might be £2 million/annum).

And no, my lab don’t get anything like that much per year for our research!

Importantly, the two activities on human and honey bee viruses are related. Our experience with the human viruses related to DWV made us well-qualified to tackle the bee virus. They replicate and evolve in very similar ways, we quantify them in the same way and there may be similarities in some ways we could approach to control them.

And with the bee viruses I can mix business with pleasure. If I’m going to the apiary I’ll get to see and handle bees, despite it being officially “work”. It doesn’t happen as much as I’d like as I’m usually sat behind the computer and all of the ‘bee team’ have been trained to work with bees by the ESBA.

However, at least when I talk to collaborators or to the beekeeping groups we’re fortunate to be working with we – inevitably – talk about bees.

And that’s fun 😀

1 Several years ago I delivered an enthusiastic and rather science-heavy talk at a Bee Farmers Association meeting. I thought it had gone reasonably well and they were kind enough to say some nice things to me … and then I got the question from the back of the room which went something like “That’s all very well young man … but what have you made NOW that I can put into my hives to make them healthy?”.

I’m sure my answer was a bit woolly. These days the presentation would have had a bit less science and bit more justification. We’ve also made some progress and it’s possible to now discuss practical strategies to rationally control viruses in the hive. It’s not rocket science … though some of the science it’s based on is reasonably fancy.

This is the third and final post on why, with what, when and how to minimise mite levels in colonies in midwinter.

In the first post I explained why midwinter mite treatment makes sense. In the second I described how oxalic acid-containing solutions should be prepared and stored.

“Oxalic acid-containing” solutions includes both Api-Bioxal, the VMD approved treatment, and the unadulterated chemical. All three posts focus on trickling or dribbling – I’ve covered sublimation previously and both are essentially equally effective. Sublimation or vaporisation is currently very fashionable … but trickling is simplicity-itself and requires almost no special equipment.

In this post I’ll discuss how to administer the oxalic acid-containing solution.

For readability I’ll use the term OA solution to mean any oxalic acid-containing solution. About 50% of the readers of this site are from outside the UK; local rules may determine what you are or are not allowed to administer to your bees.

Trickling or dribbling

You’ll hear both terms used interchangeably1. The general principle is that you directly administer 5ml of a 3.2% w/v solution of oxalic acid in thin (1:1) syrup per seam of bees in the colony.

‘Directly‘ because you administer the OA solution to the seam of bees. You don’t count the seams and then simply pour it into the hive. You don’t spread it across the top bars. The idea is that the bees at the top of the seam get coated in the solution and that it dribbles down through the colony, being passed from bee to bee as they feed and groom and move about.

Two seams of bees …

During this process any phoretic mites will also get exposed to the oxalic acid. Since mites are readily damaged by the OA solution they fall off and gradually drop out of the bottom of the cluster. Gradually, as it takes a few days for gravity to deliver all the corpses.

You can therefore determine whether mites were present and killed by placing a Varroa tray underneath the open mesh floor of the hive. Note that this doesn’t tell you how effective the treatment has been … for that you’d need to know the mite infestation level before treatment as well.

When to treat

In many ways this is the critical decision. As described previously, maximal benefit occurs when the colony is broodless. Ideally you want an extended cold period late in the calendar year. The colony will cluster tightly and brood rearing will slow down or stop completely.

If the cold period has lasted 2-3 weeks, even better. This will mean that some or all of the brood present will have emerged. The more sealed brood present, the less effective trickling OA solution is as a means of controlling mites.

Choose a calm, cool or cold day. I usually wait for a day with temperatures between 0 and 5°C. Much warmer than that and the cluster starts to break up or the bees are more likely to fly about as the crownboard is lifted. Windy or wet days disturb the bees (at least when you prise the crownboard off), so it’s best to avoid those.

I prefer to treat before the year end, rather than after, if I can. From a few irregular midwinter peeks into the cluster I think queens start laying earlier than most beekeepers think.

It pays to be prepared …

Trickle 2 – £1

… Aesop (~620-560BC) was right, though he wasn’t talking about beekeeping. Before treating your colonies there is some preparation needed. Do this properly and it’s a doddle.

Gently warm your pre-prepared OA solution to about 25°C. If you made it up in advance and stored it at 4°C in the fridge this will take an hour or two. The easiest way is to stand the container (preferably thin-walled … I use a well-rinsed milk carton) in a basin of warm water.

Pour the pre-warmed OA solution into a well-labelled vacuum flask. You can buy these from Tesco for £2.50 with a capacity of 1 litre. The aim here is to take everything you need ready-prepared to the apiary so the treatments take the minimum time possible.

Remember that OA is toxic. Label everything carefully, make sure children can’t get near it and don’t use it again for food/drink purposes.

That’s it … you’re ready. You’ll need a hive tool, a bee suit, thin gloves (to protect you from the OA, not the bees), your vacuum flask of OA solution and the Trickle 2 bottle. By all means take your smoker, but you shouldn’t need it.

I’ve got a 5 ml (or 25 ml) syringe … won’t that do?

Yes … but no.

A Trickle 2 bottle holds 100ml of prepared OA solution. It takes two hands to fill the bottle, but only one hand to use it. That 100ml is sufficient for 20 seams of bees i.e. two completely full colonies (assuming an 11 frame National box). In midwinter the colony is unlikely to occupy 10 seams. A Trickle 2 bottle is also pretty accurate, reproducibly dispensing about 4.6-4.8ml of liquid. That’s close enough to 5ml.

In contrast, a syringe also takes two hands to fill (and refill). However, unless it’s a 5ml syringe, it’s difficult to accurately and reproducibly dispense liquid without using two hands. A 5ml syringe gives you the necessary accuracy, but needs refilling for every seam of bees. This takes time … during which the crownboard is off and the colony is getting chilled.

I’ve done both and can assure you that the Trickle 2 bottle is much better. Just buy one. It’s only £1 and it’ll last ages if one of your association members doesn’t borrow it … or doesn’t return it.

How to use a Trickle 2 bottle

Remove the cap and fill to the top of the lower chamber with liquid (practice with water).

Replace the cap.

Hold the bottle with your thumb and fingers on opposite sides of the lower chamber, with the external ‘pipe’ to the upper chamber next to your palm.

Undo the spout about a turn.

Gently squeeze the lower chamber. Liquid is forced up the pipe into the upper chamber. Hold it against the light to observe this.

Once the upper chamber is full, stop squeezing. Excess liquid drains back into the lower chamber.

If you are right handed turn the Trickle 2 bottle anti-clockwise2 using your wrist and gently squeeze the bottle to dispense the liquid in the upper chamber from the spout. If you’re left handed you need to turn the bottle clockwise.

And in practice

The single-handed operation for the Trickle 2 container really pays dividends when treating a colony. You can gently prize up one side of the crownboard, hold it in one hand, administer the OA solution to each seam with the other hand and gently lower the crownboard back down … all in less time than it took me to write that.

Like this:

This is a reasonably sized colony being treated in the second week of January 3 years ago. The video is 1’45” long, but the crownboard is only open for about 50 seconds. And I was chatting with Mick Smith off camera, so could have perhaps gone a bit faster if I’d concentrated … 😉

Here’s a more detailed view of treating a small colony:

33 seconds of warmed, acidic goodness to slaughter the mites and give the colony the best possible start to the upcoming season.

Cautions and considerations

Discard any OA solution that’s not been used. Warming it will have raised the HMF levels and this may be toxic for your bees. However, read footnote 3 for another way to avoid HMF buildup3.

Wash everything carefully – the Trickle 2 bottle, the vacuum flask, gloves etc. Since the OA solution was in syrup everything gets sticky and gummed up. Clean stuff up, make sure it’s labelled and not going to be used in the kitchen and put it away until next year.

Oxalic acid kills mites, but it’s also toxic for unsealed brood. This is perhaps unsurprising considering it has a pH of 1 (i.e. very acidic) and ‘naked’ larvae aren’t protected by the tough exoskeleton that adult bees have. This is another reason to treat during a broodless period in midwinter.

In summer, swarms can also be treated with trickled oxalic acid-containing solutions before they have sealed brood. If a swarm arrives in bait hive, let it settle and start drawing comb on the foundationless frames. A day or so later treat it with oxalic acid by trickling. When I’ve done this I usually wait until late afternoon or early evening, so most of the bees are in the box. The colony obviously won’t be clustered, but the principle is the same – 5ml of syrup down each seam. Easy peasy. Effective.

Swarms have a significant mite load, so it’s well worth treating them before they rear brood and give the phoretic mites somewhere to breed.

Finally, it’s often recommended that a colony is only treated once per year with oxalic acid by trickling or dribbling. I’m not sure where this advice originates, but it’s probably wise.

‘Vaping’ vs. trickling

The discussion forums are awash with recommendations to ‘vape’ the colony, rather than trickle. Vaporisation, or more correctly sublimation, is a widely used method and has been in use for two decades. It’s currently very fashionable. I’ll write a more substantial comparison sometime in the future, but the following brief notes might be of interest.

Sublimation can be done repeatedly with brood present (though there’s no peer-reviewed evidence of efficacy) and is both well-tolerated by the colony and is not toxic to unsealed brood. It requires specialised and potentially expensive equipment, both for delivery and personal protection. You can build your own vaporiser, but shouldn’t skimp on protection for the operator. With a well designed vaporiser and hive there’s no need to open the colony to administer treatment.

In contrast, trickling requires only the Trickle 2 bottle and vacuum flask described here. Personal protection is a pair of latex gloves. It should only be conducted when the colony is broodless, should probably only be conducted once and does require the hive to be opened (albeit briefly).

You’ll be told that vaporisation is faster. It isn’t. Watch the videos above. Even my Sublimox – probably the fastest ‘active’ vaporiser on the market – takes well over a minute per colony if you take into account sealing the box, moving the generator about, unsealing the hive etc.

There are reports that sublimation is more effective, but the difference is marginal, and possibly not statistically significant. There is also a report that colonies are stronger in the Spring after sublimation, though this may be due to toxicity to open brood by trickled OA solution. If the colony is broodless this shouldn’t be an issue.

I’ve used both many, many times without a problem. Across the UK I suspect more beekeepers trickle OA, rather than ‘vape’ (a word I dislike), though the vocal ones on the discussion forums currently favour vaporisation.

What’s more important than how you deliver the oxalic acid, is that you do treat. Trickling OA solution is so easy and inexpensive that there’s no reason not to … and your colonies will be much healthier for it.

Get dribbling 😉

1 If the beekeeper is of a certain age you’ll hear these terms used in a different context. We’re restricting discussions here to delivering OA 😉

2 If you are left handed you need to turn the Trickle 2 bottle clockwise. Actually, to be pedantic, if you are left handed and holding the bottle in your left hand, turn it clockwise. It’ll make sense once you try.

3 In the previous article on preparing oxalic acid solutions Calum posted a comment on preparing the OA in water and only adding and dissolving the required amount of sugar just before use. This has the advantage that there will be no HMF buildup. OA solution in water should be perfectly stable. I’ve not done it this way, but it makes sense and might be worth trying.

Colophon

The title of this article is a twist on the term Trick or treat. This is not entirely inappropriate as Trick or treating is a Halloween (31st October … just a few days away) custom dating back – in various forms – centuries.

The modern usage, essentially North American, dates back to the 1920’s and refers to children in costumes going house to house threatening to play a trick unless the homeowner provides a treat, usually sweets or toys. In Britain these traditions date back to the 16th Century, both of children going house-to-house asking for food and of dressing up in costumes at Halloween.

Closer to home, ‘guising‘ – children in Scotland going from door to door in disguise asking for food, coins or chocolate – dates back at least a century.

The term Trick or treat only entered common usage in the UK in the 1980’s.

This is the second of three articles on midwinter treatment of colonies with oxalic acid to minimise Varroa levels. In a recent post I explained why a midwinter treatment was necessary, even if you’d treated three months earlier. Essentially this is because:

midwinter is the time when brood levels are at a minimum, so most mites will be phoretic and readily accessible to the miticide treatment

Midwinter is the time to use oxalic acid-containing treatments. It can be delivered in a variety of ways; by sublimation (vaporisation), spraying or trickling (dribbling).

Trickling or dribbling

This post is about the preparation and storage of oxalic acid-containing solutions for trickling. Sublimation is covered elsewhere and spraying is not approved or widely used in the UK.

The process for trickling is very straightforward. You simply trickle a specific strength oxalic acid solution in thin syrup over the bees in the hive. The oxalic acid kills the mites. How isn’t entirely clear – it’s thought to corrode the mouthparts and soft tissue. It’s more than 90% effective in killing phoretic mites when used like this.

Beekeepers have used oxalic acid for years as a ‘hive cleaner’, as recommended by the BBKA and a range of other official and semi-official organisations. All that changed when Api-Bioxal was licensed for use by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD).

How much and how strong?

To trickle or dribble oxalic acid-containing solutions you’ll need to prepare it at home, store it appropriately and administer it correctly.

I’ll deal with how it is administered next time. This is all about preparation.

The how much is easy. You’ll need 5ml of oxalic acid-containing solution per seam of bees. In midwinter the colony will be reasonably well clustered and its likely there will be a maximum of only 8 or 9 seams of bees, even in a very strong colony.

Hold on … what’s a seam of bees?

Two seams of bees …

Looking down on the colony from above, a seam of bees is the row visible between the top bars of the frames.

Remember to prepare ~10% more than you think you need. You’ll inevitably spill some when using the Trickle 2 bottle to administer it to the colony. It’s not that expensive, so don’t risk running out.

And the how strong? The recommended concentration to use oxalic acid at in the UK has – for many years – been 3.2% w/v (weight per volume) in 1:1 syrup. This is less concentrated than is recommended in continental Europe (see comments below on Api-Bioxal).

My advice – as it’s the only concentration I’ve used – is to stick to 3.2%.

Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once†

A bit of basic chemistry coming up. Skip to the warning in red below and then the recipes if you want, but this explains some important things about working out how much to use.

The molecular formula of oxalic acid is C2H2O4. The molecular weight of oxalic acid is 90.03 g/mol. However, the oxalic acid you purchase – including Api-Bioxal – is the dihydrated form of oxalic acid.

Di as in two, hydrated as in water.

The molecular formula of oxalic acid dihydrate is C2H2O4.2H2O and oxalic acid dihydrate has a molecular weight of 126.07 g/mol.

Caution

Oxalic acid is toxic

The lethal dose for humans is reported to be between 15 and 30 g. It causes kidney failure due to precipitation of solid calcium oxalate.

Clean up spills of powder or solution immediately.

Take care not to inhale the powder.

Store in a clearly labelled container out of reach of children.

Wear gloves.

Do not use containers or utensils you use for food preparation. A carefully rinsed plastic milk bottle, very clearly labelled, is a good way to store the solution prior to use.

Recipes : oxalic acid

The standard recipe is 100 g water plus 100 g white granulated sugar. Mix well and then add 7.5 g of oxalic acid. The final volume will be 167ml i.e. sufficient to treat over 30 seams of bees, or between 3 and 4 strong colonies (including the 10% ‘just in case’).

If you have more colonies to treat, or have trouble weighing 7.5g, scale everything up ten-fold. Or buy a small, accurate set of digital scales – like these for £9 which work very well. 1 kg of sugar plus 1 kg (1 litre) of water requires 75 g of oxalic acid and makes 1.67 litres … enough to treat all the colonies in the association apiary.

Which is not such a bad idea. Make it up carefully once and share it with your fellow beekeepers. Storage details are provided below.

Recipes : Api-Bioxal

Warning – the recipe on the side of a packet of Api-Bioxal makes up a much stronger solution (4.4% w/v) of oxalic acid than has historically been used in the UK. Stronger isn’t necessarily better. The recipe provided is 35 g Api-Bioxal to 500 ml of 1:1 syrup. By my calculations this recipe makes sufficient solution at a concentration of 4.4% w/v to treat 11 hives.

To make a 3.2% Api-Bioxal-based oxalic acid-containing solution using the 35 g pack of Api-Bioxal you need to mix the entire contents of the pack with 691 ml of 1:1 syrup.

Here’s the maths:

35 g of Api-Bioxal contains only 22.14 g of oxalic acid. 88.6% of the 35 g is oxalic acid dihydrate (the remainder is cutting agents like glucose and powdered silica) and so the oxalic acid content is ((35 * 0.886) * 0.714) = 22.14 g.

To calculate the volume of syrup you need to divide it by the final percentage required i.e. (22.14 / (3.2/100)) = 691 ml. I don’t know the exact amount of sugar and water needed to make this amount … it’ll be about 430 g of each (I think).

A 35 g packet of Api-Bioxal is therefore sufficient to treat about 15 colonies (assuming 5 ml per seam, 8 seams per hive and 10% ‘just in case’) at the recommended concentration of 3.2% w/v.

Api-Bioxal is sold in three pack sizes (35 g, 175 g and 350 g). If you are wealthy enough to be able to purchase the larger pack sizes you’ve probably got your own beekeeper (or mathematician). Relax on your yacht while they do the calculations‡ for you 😉

On the other hand … if you have a smaller number of colonies either make a full 35 g packet up and share it, or use accurate scales and the following table:

Api-Bioxal recipes for 3.2% OA trickling

Storage

Storage of oxalic acid syrup at ambient temperatures rapidly results in the acid-mediated breakdown of sugars (particularly fructose) to generate hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). As this happens the colour of the oxalic acid-containing solution darkens significantly.

This breakdown happens whether you use oxalic acid or Api-Bioxal.

Stored OA solution and colour change …

HMF is toxic to honey bees at high concentrations. Studies from ~40 years ago showed that HMF concentrations below 30 mg/l were safe, but above 150 mg/l were toxic1. HMF buildup is one way overheated honey is detected.

At 15°C HMF levels in OA solution can reach 150 mg/l in a little over a week. At room temperature this happens much faster, with HMF levels exceeding 150 mg/l in only 2-3 days. In the dark HMF levels build up slightly less quickly … but only slightly 2,3.

Only make up OA solutions when you need them.

If you must store your oxalic acid-containing syrup for any length of time it should be in the fridge (4°C). Under these conditions HMF levels remain well below toxic levels for at least one year. However, don’t store it for this long … use it and discard the excess. Don’t use discoloured oxalic acid solutions as they’ve been stored incorrectly and may well harm your bees.

Please re-read the comments above about the toxicity of oxalic acid. If you are going to store it in the fridge it must be very clearly labelled and there must be no chance that children can reach or open the container.

Conclusions

Api-Bioxal is the least expensive VMD-approved miticide and powdered oxalic acid is much, much cheaper. Both contain the same active ingredient, oxalic acid, which is highly effective against phoretic mites.

In midwinter, with very low levels (or no) of brood, a single oxalic acid-containing treatment minimises mite levels for the coming season.

Oxalic acid-containing solutions are easy to prepare. I recommend you make sufficient for your own colonies and those of your beekeeping friends and association members. My previous BKA used to distribute litres of the stuff for use in midwinter. Use this solution in midwinter and then discard any that is unused.

Oxalic acid-containing solutions are inexpensive and easy to administer by trickling. As I shall demonstrate next time.

Please re-read the safety instructions highlighted in red above.

Michelle Dubois

† Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once was a catchphrase used by “Michelle of the Resistance” in the 1980’s comedy ‘Allo ‘Allo! Michelle (Dubois) was rarely seen without a trench coat and beret, had a corny French accent and was played by Kirsten Cooke.

‘Allo ‘Allo! ran for 85 episodes in the decade from 1982 on BBC one. It was about a café in Nazi-occupied France and the French Resistance, just about. It mixed bawdy humour with gross stereotypes (posh British twits, sex-obsessed French) and was a parody of ITV’s series Secret Army (’77-’79).

Early episodes had obvious and rather dull titles. In the later series the individual episodes had some quite good puns like Awful Wedded Wife.

Michelle – Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once

René – Well, in that case, could you please speak slowly?

You had to be there … 😉

‡ Oh alright then, since you insist. The 175 g pack of Api-Bioxal (~£39) needs to be made up in 3.459 litres of 1:1 syrup and the 350 g pack (~£65) 6.919 litres of 1:1 syrup. Determining how much water and sugar to mix to make these amount is, as they say, an exercise for the reader. Assuming a 3.2% solution and 8 seams of bees per colony Api-Bioxal costs between 63p and 41p per hive (see note below), depending upon the pack size you purchase. I know that beekeepers moan on and on about the outrageous cost of Api-Bioxal (as do I), but is 63p per colony really an unreasonable amount to spend on VMD-approved medicines to keep your colony as clear of Varroa as possible? I don’t think so.

Note – the costs in the paragraph were calculated using the lowest prices I could currently find for Api-Bioxal. C Wynne Jones has the 35g packets for £9.50 and Maisemores have the 350g packets for £64.79. Prices correct on 9/10/17.

Why bother treating colonies in midwinter to reduce Varroa infestation? After all, you probably treated them with Apiguard or Apivar (or possibly even Apistan) in late summer or early autumn.

Is there any need to treat again in midwinter?

Yes. To cut a long story short, there are basically two reasons why a midwinter mite treatment almost always makes sense:

Mites will be present. In addition, they’ll be present at a level higher than the minimum level achievable, particularly if you last treated your colonies in late summer, rather than early autumn.

The majority of mites will be phoretic, rather than hiding away in sealed brood. They’re therefore easy to target.

I’ll deal with these in reverse order …

Know your enemy

DWV symptoms

The ectoparasite Varroa feeds on honey bee pupae and, while doing so, transmits viruses (in particular DWV) that can completely mess up the development of the adult bee. Varroa cannot replicate anywhere other than on developing pupae. It’s replication cycle, and the resulting mite levels in the colony, are therefore tightly linked to the numbers and availability of hosts … honey bee pupae.

If developing brood is available the mite can replicate. Under these conditions, newly emerged adult, mated, female Varroa spend a few days as phoretic mites, riding around the colony on young bees. They then select a cell with a late-stage larvae in, enter the cell and wait until pupation occurs. If developing worker brood is available each infested cell produces 1 – 2 new mites (drone cells produce 3+) and mite numbers increase very rapidly in the colony.

In contrast, if there’s no developing brood available, the mites have to hang around waiting for brood to become available. They do this as phoretic mites and can remain like this for weeks or months if necessary.

Therefore, when brood is in abundance and the queen in laying freely mites can replicate to very high levels. In contrast, when brood is limiting and the queen has reduced her egg laying to a v e r y s l o w r a t e the mite cannot replicate and must be predominantly phoretic.

When does this happen?

Lay Lady Lay … or don’t

Ambient temperature, day length and the availability of nectar and pollen likely influence whether the queen lays eggs. When it’s cold, dark and there’s little or no pollen or nectar coming into the hive the queen slows down, or even stops, laying eggs.

About 8 days after she stops laying there will be no more unsealed brood in the colony. About 13 days after that all the sealed brood will have emerged (along with any Varroa). Therefore, after an extended cold period in midwinter, the colony will have the lowest level of sealed brood … and the highest proportion of the mite population will be phoretic.

Under normal (midsummer) circumstances about 10% of the mite population is phoretic. It’s probably unnecessary to state that, if there’s no brood available, 100% of the mites must be phoretic.

All licensed miticides work extremely well against phoretic mites†.

Caveats, guesstimates, global warming and the Gulf Stream

Global warming …

Whatever the cause, the globe is warming (irrespective of what Donald Trump tweets). Long, hard winters are getting less common (or perhaps even rarer, as they were never particularly common in the UK). In Central, Southern or Eastern Britain it’s possible that the colony will have some brood present all year. In parts of the West, warmed by the Gulf Stream, I’d be surprised if a colony was ever broodless. Only in the North is it likely that there will be a brood break in midwinter.

Most of the paragraph above is semi-informed guesswork. I don’t think anyone has systematically analysed colonies in the winter for the presence of sealed brood. Sure, many (including me) have opened colonies for a quick peek. Others will have peered intently at the Varroa board to search for shredded wax cappings that indicate emerging brood. The presence of brood will vary according to environmental conditions and the genetics of the bees, so it’s not possible to be dogmatic about these things.

However, it’s safe to say that in midwinter, sealed brood – within which the mites can escape decimation by miticides – is at a minimal level.

However, I will re-present the graph that illustrates the modelled (using BEEHAVE) mite levels‡.

Time of treatment and mite numbers

The gold arrow(days 240-300i.e. September and October) indicates when the winter bees are being reared. These are the bees that need to be protected from mites (and their viruses).Mite numbers (starting with just 20 in the hive on day zero) are indicated by the solid coloured lines. The blue, black, red, cyan and green lines indicate modelled mite numbers when the colony is treated with a miticide (95% effective) in mid-July, August, September, October or November respectively.

The earlier you treat, the lower the mite levels are when the winter bees are being reared. Study the blue and black lines.

This is a good thing.

In contrast, by treating very late (the cyan and green lines) the highest mite numbers of the season occur at the same time as the winter bees are being reared. A bad thing.

But … look also at mite numbers after treatment

Look carefully at the mite numbers predicted to remain at the end of the year. Early treatment leaves higher mite levels at the start of the following year.

This is simply because mites escaping the treatment at the end of summer have had an opportunity to reproduce during the late autumn.

This is why the additional midwinter treatment is beneficial … it kills residual mites and gives the colony the best start to the new calendar year§.

Kick ’em when they’re down

Early treatment protects winter bees but risks exposing bees the following season to unnecessarily high mite numbers. However, in midwinter, these residual mites are much more likely to be phoretic due to a lack of brood in the colony. As I stated earlier, phoretic mites are relatively easy to target with miticides.

So, give the mites a hammering in late summer with an appropriate and effective miticide and then give those that remain another dose of the medicine in midwinter¶.

But not another dose of the same medicine

Since the majority of mites in a colony with little or no brood will be phoretic, you can easily reduce their numbers using a single treatment containing oxalic acid. This can be administered by sublimation (vaporisation) or by trickling (dribbling).

There’s no need to use any treatment that needs to applied for a month. Indeed, many (Apiguard etc.) are not recommended for use in winter because they work far less well on a largely inactive colony.

Trickle 2 – £1

I’ve discussed sublimation previously. However, since this requires relatively expensive (£30 – £300) specialised delivery and personal protection equipment it may be inappropriate for the two hive owner. In contrast, trickling requires almost no expensive or special equipment and – reassuringly – has been successfully practised by UK beekeepers for many years. I did it for years before I bought my Sublimox vaporiser.

Therefore, in two further articles this autumn (well before you’ll need to treat your own colonies) I’ll describe the preparation and storage of oxalic acid solutions and its use.

Be prepared

If you want to be prepared you’ll need to beg, borrow or steal the following – sufficient oxalic acid (or Api-Bioxal), a Trickle 2 bottle sold by Thorne’s, a cheap vacuum flask (Tesco £2.50), granulated sugar and a pair of thin disposable gloves.

Do this soon. Don’t leave it until midwinter. You need to be ready to treat as soon as there’s a protracted cold spell (when brood will be at a minimum). Over the last few years my records show that this has been anywhere between the third week in November and the third week in January.

More soon …

† Only MAQS is effective against mites sealed in cells. This is why most miticides are used for extended periods in the late summer or early autumn … the miticide must be present as Varroa emerge from sealed cells.

‡ I’ll repeat the caveat that this is an in silico simulation of what happens in a beehive. Undoubtedly it’s not perfect, but it serves to illustrate the point well. It’s freely available, runs on PC and Mac computers, and is reasonably well-documented. In the simulations shown here the virtual colony was ‘primed’ with 20 mites at the beginning of the year. BEEHAVE was run using all the default settings – climate, forage etc. – with the additional application of a miticide (95% effective) in the middle of the months indicated. Full details of the modelling have already been posted.

§ The National Bee Unit recommend Varroa levels are maintained below 1000 throughout the season. Without treatment, 20 mites at the start of the season can easily replicate to ~750 in the autumn. If you start the season with 200 mites then levels are predicted to reach ~5000 in the following summer. The colony will almost certainly die that season or the next. There’s a more detailed account of the consequence of winter brood rearing and the level of mite infestation written by Eric McArthur and reproduced on the Montgomeryshire BKA website that’s worth reading.

¶ The cumulative (year upon year) effect of late summer treatment with no midwinter treatment has been discussed previously. I’ll simply re-post the relevant figure here – 5 years of bee (in blue, left axis) and mite (in red, right axis) numbers with only one treatment per season applied in late September. Within two years the higher mite numbers that are present at the start of the year reproduce to dangerously high levels.